[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lost in Translation

Claudia and Doug Kittel dougclau at cybertime.net
Mon Oct 31 21:29:59 PST 2005


Depending on how far back your ancestor lived, I can see how languages got
mixed up.  Take the early 1900s for example.  It was really considered
socially unacceptable in some circles for anyone to speak in any language
but German.  These attitudes got perpetuated by their children, and
eventually became a form of prejudice here in the United States.  I remember
the Pollock jokes of the 40s and 50s; they were derived from this very type
of hate.  They made the Polish out to be very unintelligent.  So if your
ancestor's Pastor was writing something in Polish, and speaking German, the
possibility was that he was confusing facts as well.

I am no history expert, but I teach English and took German in high school,
Spanish in college, and have a real distaste for ambiguity.

Hope this is not difficult to understand; I get academic once in a while.

Claud\ia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Norenberg" <robertnorenberg at yahoo.ca>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 10:30 PM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lost in Translation


> O.K. So my ancestor spoke in german to his pastor and
> then the pastor wrote the record in polish (but
> probably spoke back to my ancestor in german.) This
> may account for some of the odd little mix ups I have
> seen in some of
> these records. After all,the pastor was multi tasking! Robert
>
>
>
>
>
>
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